Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Short takes on the week so far

What do you mean it's only Tuesday?

Academic Lesson 1.Will work for food, or less. Did you hear the one about the university that invited fully qualified Ph.D.s to submit their curricula vitae for a position that paid literally nothing? But remember:

No one cares how hard you work, especially if it's to attain results that they've come to expect.

Academic Lesson 3: The Lesson of the Master. I have decided to learn a lesson based on observation: the person who did this job some years before me--someone I greatly admire--devoted x hours to it and not a second more, leaving each day promptly to go and do zir scholarship. Ze didn't look back, didn't answer emails out of sequence, and didn't let this part of the job intrude into zir scholarship. Ze did the job well and was and is very productive.

I've been like one of those eager workers in a factory, trying to get everything done right away. What I have learned is Academic Lesson 2, when what I need to learn is Academic Lesson 3.

Academic Lesson 4: Still fine to be ageist in the Chronicle. The article about "Feeling Anxious?" has some good suggestions about mindfulness.

But do you know the only group that was called out for its appearance? Hint: not gender, not race, not class, but this: "Some of these people are in their 70s, with bags under their eyes, and CVs as long as Jack Kerouac’s scroll of On the Road. Yet, they never stop." I get that the author was trying to be funny, but really?